FocusOnTheFamily

Here to meet God

Written by Frank Stirk

Last summer, a friend offered to get me into a running program as a way to lose weight. I had my doubts that I could do it, but I trusted him, and so I agreed to give it a try.

Off we went to a 400-metre track. “Frank,” he said, “I want you to do two laps around the track.” I said I couldn’t possibly do one lap – but somehow I did the two laps, anyway. “Now in a couple of days,” he said, “I want you to do three laps.” Yeah, right! Well, to my amazement, I did the three laps. Then four laps. Then five laps. After a month, I was up to 14 laps and I’d lost ten pounds! And I’m still running.

That experience got me out of the rut of believing there was no way I could change some not-so-healthy habits of a lifetime. And yet once I realized that the goals my friend set for me were actually attainable, I found the resolve – the self-discipline – to keep going.

Disciplining our bodies makes us physically stronger. By the same token, disciplining ourselves spiritually releases the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

As Dallas Willard writes in his book, The Spirit of the Disciplines, spiritual disciplines are “activities of mind and body purposely undertaken, to bring our personality and total being into effective cooperation with the divine order. They enable us more and more to live in a power that is, strictly speaking, beyond us, deriving from the spiritual realm itself . . .”

And just as physical exercise is not an end in itself, the goal of these spiritual exercises is not our mastery of them, but rather a more intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.

Vange Thiessen, who teaches spiritual formation at the ACTS Seminary of Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C., says Christians need to approach the disciplines believing, “ ‘I’m coming here to meet God.’ Yes, I am making that intentional decision, but it’s not about my merit, it’s not about my effort, it’s not about getting it right or how many times I do it or how hard I work at it.

“It’s really much more a sense of entering a relationship and being open in ways that we haven’t seen God before and met God before.”

So what are the spiritual disciplines? Willard lists 15 of them. Seven involve abstinence – solitude, silence, fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy and sacrifice – in which “we abstain to some degree and for some time from the satisfaction of what we generally regard as normal and legitimate desires.” Practicing these, he believes, makes room for eight disciplines of engagement – study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession and submission.

As Thiessen notes, “Jesus sought out silence and solitude, often before or after He had been with groups of people. In the Psalms, too, is this idea of being still, waiting patiently and knowing ‘I am God.’ ”

Some disciplines will naturally come easier to us than others. But we must resist giving our attention only to those that take little effort. After all, the purpose of the activity is to overcome areas of personal weakness, not to become better at what we’re already good at.

While awaiting His arrest, Jesus urged His disciples, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak” (Matt. 26:41). Yet they could not stay awake. “But had they watched and prayed, as they were advised,” Willard argues, “. . . they would have been in a condition of body and mind to secure the Father’s assistance to stand as firmly as Jesus himself did.”

When Christians approach the spiritual disciplines with their hearts and spirits in the right place, says Thiessen, they gain the understanding that our relationship with God is primarily about grace and love and compassion.

“In John 15:15,” she adds, “Jesus says, ‘I no longer call you servants. . . . Instead, I have called you friends.’ Do we see Him as a friend? Do we see Him as essential to our everyday life? It seems to me that if spiritual disciplines are to become really meaningful, it would be important to see Jesus as our friend.”

Frank Stirk practices his spiritual disciplines in North Vancouver, B.C.

© 2007 Focus on the Family (Canada) Association. All rights reserved.